A comparison of the pension systems in Germany and Austria can be interesting for Czech academics and politicians who want to push through a fundamental pension reform. In Germany and Austria, the governments initiated a trend towards later retirement with the measures they introduced at the beginning of the century. Despite the drastic reduction in the benefits of their public pension systems since the early 2000s, Germany and Austria support later retirement to maintain the viability of their pension systems. This paper focuses on the basic structure of these two interesting pension systems and their main parameters that influence their adequacy and sustainability.